


Waiting

by PreludeInZ



Series: DrabbleRouser [5]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Dehydration, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Stupid Ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:14:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2623064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You adorable idiot, don't do shit like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

> thisgirllovesherfandoms asked:
> 
> "Waiting"

**Scout/Pauling - Waiting**

It was really hot in New Mexico. It got hot in Boston, sure, damn hot. But not like it was hot in New Mexico. People said it was a dry heat. People said that helped.

Sitting beside Highway 550, where he’d been sitting for three hours because Miss Pauling was supposed to come this way, whether the heat was dry or not really didn’t help. He was twenty-two and stupid and dehydrated and he had turned down rides with the last three trucks whose drivers had stopped and offered him a ride into town, because none of them drove purple trucks or were the really pretty girl from the office. And actually he didn’t really even need to go into town.

This was maybe a bad idea. He was hot and dizzy and his ass ached from sitting on hard, dusty gravel, and he had long since run out of water. Maybe this was actually a really bad idea. Maybe he’d better take the next ride that came along. It occurred to him that if he was dizzy on the ground, he was going to be  _really_ dizzy if he stood up, and that was the last thing he needed, falling flat on his stupid face in front of Miss Pauling.

He stumbled to his feet. And yeah. Really dizzy. Seeing spots and stars and patches of darkness type dizzy. It took a lot of just standing, taking deep, parched and only marginally helpful breaths, before he was up to any walking. At least it was rapidly getting cooler. At least the sun was going down. At least he hadn’t seen any snakes or lizards or scorpions.

Yet.

Shit.

At least the next truck that came by was Miss Pauling’s. She almost drove right on by, but stopped ten yards past him, with a squeal of her brakes. She reversed up the empty highway and stopped beside him. A vehicular double take. She shoved the passenger door open. “Scout, what the hell are you doing out here? Get in.” _  
_

And she had bottles of water which she wouldn’t let him drink too quickly and she turned on the air conditioner and when she’d finished telling him _exactly_  how dumb he was and why hadn’t he just asked her for a ride into town, then they just talked for the rest of the two hour drive into Teufort.

Scout thought so, anyway. Actually he’d chattered at her semi-coherently for about five minutes, and fallen asleep abruptly, practically in mid-sentence.

It had been worth the wait, though.


End file.
